There are a bunch of posts on this general topic but I’m having trouble piecing it all together.
All of the US-based subscription options are a complete mess and all I want to do is watch live FIS World Cup Alpine races, primarily replays. Commentary in German or another language is fine with me.
At present I pay subscriptions for all three platforms that show the races (Outside+, Peacock, and skiandsnowboard.live). The whole thing is a complete shitshow. Peacock has hardly any races. Outside Watch seems to only have the US-based races though I think we’re supposed to be able to watch replays of all races on there – I haven’t figured out how – and skiandsnowboard.live is the worst streaming website service I have ever paid for (search is unusable, no way to mark or track what you’ve watched, and the streaming player doesn’t even have basic keyboard controls).
Never used a VPN before but I am now ready to cancel all this bullshit and try one so I can get access to the races in some straightforward and consistent way. What’s my best bet here? Surely there must be others on this sub who are in the same boat.
To be clear I just want to be able to see FIS Alpine World Cup events, men’s and womens’ all disciplines. Need replays because of the time difference to Europe and general life demands are such that I need to be able to watch on demand.
Likewise if folks have tips on how to make Outside or skiandsnowboard.live more usable I’m all ears, but doesn’t seem likely.
EDIT: Success! Only question is why I waited so long. CBC has just what I’m looking for and the FIS YouTube channel as well when accessing from some of the places suggested. For the various Swiss TV options I can only find the general coverage pages with short 1-2 minute highlight videos. Would love to find the full replays on there and practice a little language comprehension so I’ll keep looking a bit.
Try using an Australian vpn endpoint. The FIS Alpine YouTube channel has all the races on live and demand under the Live section as we don’t have any local rights holders here. Better English commentary than Eurosport, too. Shows up when I use ExpressVPN to the Sydney, Aus server.
SRF (Swiss TV) should work with VPN - great commentary in German, full stream of all racers and replay of speed races and 2nd run of tech races available for all races. Also extra interviews with race winners and Swiss racers.
A British Eurosport sub is probably your best bet if you can find a way to pay for it. Think I pay £40 per year (~$50) and get every single race with English commentary
This post is a bit dated, but I came here to say that I am in the same exact situation. I pay for all the U.S. subscriptions, yet feel that the offerings are inferior. What set me off searching for a better solution is that Ski And Snowboard Live is now wanting more $$ to watch the World Championships - not happening by me.
What is working for me is using a FireStick with a VPN set for New Zealand and using the YouTube app to tune in the FIS Alpine channel. Video quality is at least as good as the crappy Ski And Snowboard website casting to a TV. Same exact coverage, too.
Not quite all of the races, but most. I’ve also been able to pick up the few races that CBC doesn’t cover from the FIS Youtube site from Canada. So you could try that, too. Sometimes there is commentary in English…sometimes some other language…sometimes nothing.
One of the big things is that the broadcasts are taken up by the local TV channels. FIS doesn’t have a whole setup to go around from country to country like FOM can afford to have. And also the national broadcast has experiences with it. Swiss TV for example has been responsible for the broadcast of a few of the recent Olympic races.
CBC does a piss poor job of organizing their content on the pages. Anything other than upcoming live streams are almost hidden. Races that have already happened that you can actually watch during the day instead of after last call are often buried on the webpage. And you’ll have to scroll past all kinds of race highlight links that will spoil the outcome before you get to the race link.
I can find the pages that cover skiing on each of these but can only find short highlight videos. Any more specific advice as to where to look or what to search for?
So the main thing is that they mostly are about the live events, which definitely can be annoying from the US. They do have somewhere a spot where you can see the past broadcast, but I can’t remember where let me search.